Texturing problem

Hi all. Didn't know where else to put this.

Ok, i've been having some issues with texturing and I hoped you guys might be able to help.

I've created a bmp texture. The first was 700x800 or so. Pretty big. When I uploaded it onto a tube about 1.5x1.5m it came out blurry.

I changed size three more times down to 380x480 or so and also tried in TGA format but still the same each tiem, it comes out blurry. Very annoying!

You can see the texture on the hull of the Pirate roller coaster carriage car at Linden World.

Any ideas what's going on or what I am doing wrong?

Pirate

Well the reason it's being resized (or whatever) and being made blurry is that you're limited to specific dimensions:
(powers of two)

2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, or 1024.

They don't need to be square...it can be 256x512 or whatever.

And now I'd like to also shamelessly plug my other thread on the General Discussions board titled something similar to "MODELING/TEXTURING FORUM NEEDED".

I very much agree. There doesn't seem to be enough info on this out there.

Ahh, ok so as long as I keep it to a power of 2 i'll be ok. That's both sides right?

Pirate

Yup that's a limitation for both dimensions. It should turn out alot clearer...

But I'm not sure if you can use more than 1024 (like 204....I tried doing this and I got a pretty blurry texture. Maybe it didn't load all the way (but I doubt it) Someone else on the other forum seemed to think that it worked (just took a super long time to load), so I don't know about that for sure.

Take a look at downloads->guides and tutorials on this website, I think that's where I found the reference.pdf file that has this information. Pretty useful

800x700 is defenitly power of 2....

Yeah I found that statement (in Reference.pdf I downloaded from this website) a little odd too at first. But I'm pretty sure the dimensions I listed are the ones to use.



Does 800x700 work or does it get corrupted? I think it wouldn't look so good, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Actually (and I haven't gotten enough sleep)... 700 is a power of two? Huh?

It seems that if you upload something that does not have power of 2 dimensions (and 700 isn't) then the texture will be scaled up to the next acceptable size. This will stretch it and blur it. If you scale the texture back down on your object (if you can) it will clear up, but it's best to do the scaling yourself. Closer is better, if you can't hit a power of 2 dead-on.

If possible you should always, as Garoad says, use a power of 2.

For small repeating textures I usually use 128x128 and for clothing and detailed objects I mostly use 512x512. If you've got an odd sized texture, re-size the *canvas* to a power of 2 and then use a mask (alpha channel) to make the empty space transparent.

Also there are quite a few ways to manipulate (tiling, placement, rotation) textures in-game.

Pirate, feel free to contact me in-game, and I'll help you out!

(I know there are plenty of texture tutorials out on the web, but is there one for SL? Do we need one? Should I create one?)

I think so! Write that tutorial!

Where can i learn about making alpha chans in PSP and PS?

Thanks a lot!

Pirate

yeah I thought that power of 2 meant multiple of 2 (so 2 4 6 8 )

excuse me for my mistake... but I'm not english

Well to get your started, here's a very nice resource:

http://gameart.jaquays.com/texture_resources.html

There's a lot there to look through there and much of it is for FPS type games, but it's a start. I will set aside some time to do a tutorial

Another good way to have a texture with dimensions slightly different from the ones we have available is to just paste a (for example) 350x400 image on a 512x512 black image and leave the rest black (or whatever).

It doesn't even need to be transparent in this case, because you can use the texture offset values to offset the texture and show only the part you want. You'd also have to set the repeat so it's less than 1 repeat per face, depending on the exact numbers you use...this is kind of like "enlarging" the texture.

This won't work if you need the texture to repeat, it's only good for something that only is displayed once per face (i.e. side or surface). I find that this usually isn't necessary unless you absolutely cannot allow the texture to be stretched at all...stretching a square texture a little usually isn't that noticable unless it's extreme.

If I need a seamless repeating texture I always use a multiple of 2.

I knew it did some kind of resizing... just couldn't remember if it was making it bigger or smaller.

Here's one for PSP written by Steller and Shebang Sunshine:
PSP tutorial

and this thread has instructions for Photoshop.

HTH

Yeah very quick lesson alpha channel in PSP 7:

If you make an image make sure it has one layer... now you can use the eraser to make things transparant (you should see the a checkered background (grey white) on the pieces you delete.
anyway what I just told is something you probably know how to do in PSP: make an image with transparancy.

now the trick for alpha channel is:

-make a mask (Masks->Create Mask->From Image) and choose "Source Opacity".
-then: save to alpha channel (Masks->Save To Alpha Channel).. you should see a list of alpha channels with one entry "New Channel" (if not delete all channels in list) just click OK and give any name.
Now you have one alpha channel in your image (TGA only supports one). So save it to .tga file. Now upload to second life and it will work. If not just IM me in game sometimes and I'll help you out.